


from going on (lost and found)

by gilligankane



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 16:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18608056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: “When I was your age, I found a sock of my own. It wasn’t mine, mind. It was a horrid gray sock with a hole at the toe. A stench.” Her mum’s nose wrinkles, as if she’s remembering the smell of it. “I brought it to my mother straight away, and she told me what I’m going to tell you.”Vanessa leans forward, the sock forgotten and falling to the floor at her feet. “What?”Her mum glances out the window and back again. “Do you know what a soulmate is, Vanessa?”





	from going on (lost and found)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [setting_sail_indefinitely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/setting_sail_indefinitely/gifts).



> A soulmates AU that no one needs. Still, this is dedicated to [setting_sail_indefinitely]() who gave me the fantastic idea (that I hopefully didn't murder).

She finds a bracelet in her jewelry box one morning. The beads are large and colorful, and she pauses for just a minute. She twists the chunky beads in between her fingers and frowns. It doesn’t match the bright silver and gold-plated necklaces and earrings she already owns. And she’d never wear it; her mum would never let her.

But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still there, nestled between the cross Greg bought her at Christmas and thin, platinum bracelet with the small aquamarine stones slipped into the links. It’s not hers. It can’t be hers. So she closes the lid of the box gently and takes small steps away from it until she’s back in the kitchen and she’s gathering plates for dinner.

She checks again before she goes to sleep and it’s still there. She decides to try and forget about it.

 

-

 

“I found something,” she tells her mum one morning. She holds it up between two fingers, lips pursed.

Her mum looks up and down before her eyes widen and she looks up again. “ _Vanessa_.”

“It’s not mine,” Vanessa says quickly. She wasn’t even sure she knew what it was, at first. But then she remembers seeing one before in the pocket of her father’s coat - one of the ones her mum donated when he left. She puts the small flask down on the table, the outer case grimy with dirt and sticky around the top. The silver is dulled against the stark white tablecloth her mum pressed this morning. “Is it Greg’s?”

“It most certainly is not,” her mum hisses. She pushes the flask away with the end of her fork, chin in the air. “Where did you find it?”

“In the bathroom. On the floor by the toilet.” Vanessa had thought it was an odd place for it to be, but what should she know about it?

Her mum sniffs and pushes the flask further away across the table.

Vanessa overhears her mum yelling at Greg later, but she forgets about the flask soon enough.

 

-

 

She doesn’t tell her mum about the other things she finds. Train tickets, cash and carry receipts, pressed flowers, smudged phone numbers on wet papers. She hides them all in a box that she pushes under her bed. She doesn’t know what they are, where they’re from, or who they belong to, but she keeps them.

A voice inside her whispers that _someday, someone might want them back_.

 

-

 

She finds a pregnancy test one morning, and she wraps it tightly in a roll of toilet paper that she puts into her backpack. 

She throws it out near the boy’s toilet when no one is looking.

 

-

 

There’s a single sock in her laundry pile one day with a hole in the toe, worn down at the heel. It’s dirty, caked with mud. And there might be - she wrinkles her nose. Blood. Right along the top of the sock.

Her mum finds her holding it in the bathroom, staring at it curiously.

“What is that?”

Vanessa jumps, the sock dropping from her hand. “Mum.”

Her mum ignores her. “What is that?” she repeats. She points at the sock on the floor.

“A sock,” Vanessa says slowly.

Her mum gives her a withering look. “What have you done to it?”

Vanessa shakes her head. “No, it’s not mine.”

Her mum frowns, now. “Then where did you get it?” She steps back from it as if it’ll grow legs and crawl towards her. “Is this another-” She stops abruptly, pressing her lips together in a thin line.

It makes Vanessa pause. “Is this another what?”

Her mum sighs, and she’s quiet for so long that Vanessa thinks she won’t speak. She’s just about to give up when her mum clears her throat softly.

“I know you’ve been keeping things, Vanessa.”

Something starts to flutter inside her chest nervously.

Her mum stares down at Vanessa over the end of her nose. “Answer me. Is another one of those things you’ve found.”

Vanessa can’t be sure this isn’t a trap, so she waits for three heartbeats before she says, “It’s not mine.”

Her mum sighs again, the hard look in her eyes fading. “I was afraid of that.”

“Afraid of what?” Vanessa doesn’t recognize this mix of resignation and fear on her mum’s face. She’s never seen it before.

Her mum sits down on the edge of her bed, folding her hands in her lap. It takes her a moment to start, opening and closing her mouth a few times before she speaks. “When I was your age, I found a sock of my own.”

“A sock,” Vanessa repeats.

“It wasn’t mine, mind. It was a horrid gray sock with a hole at the toe. A stench.” Her mum’s nose wrinkles, as if she’s remembering the smell of it. “I brought it to my mother straight away, and she told me what I’m going to tell you.”

Vanessa leans forward, the sock forgotten and falling to the floor at her feet. “What?”

Her mum glances out the window and back again. “Do you know what a soulmate is, Vanessa?”

“I suppose so.” Vanessa tips her head in confusion. “But what’s that to do with a sock?”

“My mother told me that soulmates are a ridiculous notion and the very idea of them is absolute nonsense. And I’m telling you the same.” Her mum softens a bit in the shoulders. “But there are some that say soulmates are real. That they do exist and it is just a matter of time before you happen upon them.”

Every conversation she’s heard at school comes flooding back. She remembers Kenny Marlow staring at her with moon eyes, trying to give her back a pencil she knew wasn’t hers. She remembers Carla King whispering in the bathroom about notes in handwriting she didn’t recognize.

“But how?”

Her mum sighs. “Of course” she murmurs. But her fingers twitch, and Vanessa waits. “What was the foolish rhyme they used to teach…” She sighs again. “Right. It went, ‘ _a soulmate finds what has been lost for true love comes at no true cost._ ’ Yes, that was it.”

“So what I’ve lost, my soulmate finds?” Vanessa looks down at the sock at her feet. “And what they’ve lost…”

“Yes, Vanessa.” Her mum heaves a third sigh, and Vanessa knows she’s only got a few more seconds before her mum shuts down and cuts the conversation short.

“Do you bel-”

“No,” her mum says sharply. “I do not.”

Vanessa looks at her mum carefully, trying to remember what she looked like when her dad was still here; when they were all so happy. She wonders, was he her soulmate?

“And you’d do best to think the same.” Her mum stands, shoulders pulled back tightly. “Dispose of that. And anything else you might find.” Her voice softens. “Trust me, Vanessa. It’s for the best.”

Vanessa looks at her mum’s retreating back as she leaves. She picks up the sock and throws it away.

 

-

 

She finds other things, too, while she’s in uni; all of it inconsequential. More socks and tickets and once there was a teabag that soaked through her biology homework. It goes on like this for years. She throws them all out and pushes down the idea that there’s someone out there, collecting all of her lost items as well.

She doesn’t keep any of it until she on her first all-nighter with a stubborn cow who won’t give birth, rereading some of her school texts. In the center of her textbook, she finds a picture, wrinkled and worn. She smoothes it out on her lap. It’s of a baby with bright eyes and brighter hair, mouth open in a gurgle as he looks into the camera.

_Soulmates are a ridiculous notion,_  her mum had said. _Absolute nonsense._

But the baby smiles happily up at her from the picture and Vanessa hesitates. _Surely,_  she thinks, _this means something._

So Vanessa keeps the picture, pressed into that course books, and she ignores her mum’s voice in her head.

Sometimes late at night, she takes it out and wonders who it is, this baby with the shock of blonde hair.

She hopes wherever he is, he’s happy and safe and loved.

 

-

 

She keeps everything she finds after that.

 

-

 

“Do you believe it, about soulmates?” she asks during their weekly video chat.

Rhona’s a bit fuzzy in the Skype window on her computer, but she looks up from her notes, her pen hovering over the page. “What’s that?”

“Soulmates,” Vanessa repeats. She slides her hand across her desk and into her textbook she keeps there, fingers finding the edge of the picture she hasn’t thrown away yet. “Do you believe it?”

“I do.” Rhona puts down her pen and drops her chin into her hand. “Do you?”

Vanessa pulls her hand out of her book, her fingertips burning. “Sometimes,” she admits. She leans closer, lowering her voice as if someone is going to come into her flat and hear her. “Do you… Have you found anything? Something they’ve lost?”

Rhona looks around the office she’s in and nods quickly. “A glove.”

“A glove?”

“A working glove, I think. A farm maybe? There’s mud caked on it.” Rhona lifts a bag up into Vanessa’s view. “I keep it here, just in case.”

In case of what, she wants to ask. “That’s it, then? Just a mucky glove?”

Rhona narrows her eyes, studying Vanessa. “Why? Have you gotten more than a few things?”

Vanessa thinks of the picture in the pages at the back of her book. “My soulmate must be a forgetful person.”

“Must be,” Rhona says. “But just so we’re clear, how many things have you got?”

“Oh, just a few,” Vanessa lies.

 

-

 

Her mum sends her some of her things once she’s well and truly settled in Emmerdale. Vanessa throws most of it out; she’s been without it for so long she must not need them. The box is there, though, and she takes the lid off carefully. Everything is still there - every little scrap of paper and every pencil stub.

Vanessa drops the lid suddenly, standing in the middle of the room as she looks in circles. “I know you’re here somewhere,” she mumbles to herself.” She snaps her fingers when she thinks of it. There, behind some of the stacked books she’s not put away yet, she finds her old text she’s kept over the years and flips through it to the back.

Gently, she slides the picture out from between the pages and runs a finger over it. She still takes it out sometimes and wonders who this baby is. Is he playing footie with his friends, now? Is she taking piano lessons and learning to sew? Are they older now, studying at uni and making top marks?

She doesn’t know the answer to any of her questions; she probably never will. 

But she adds the picture to the box and puts it in the cupboard under the sink, and she goes back to unpacking her things from her mum’s house.

When she finds something different, something out of place, she adds it to the box, and she hopes one day, she can find someone to give it all back to.

 

-

There’s that one Christmas where Tug Ghyll is full of Bartons, lighting up the darkest corners of her small home. She’s passing Noah a plate of food, balancing it carefully in her hand as it wavers. “Noah,” she urges gently. “Grab this, would you?”

He looks up at her, bright eyes and bright hair, mouth open in a smile, and takes the plate.

Vanessa smiles back at him and gets him a refill on his orange juice.

 

-

 

She lays Johnny down carefully and sits beside him, stretching to reach the laundry basket beside the couch. She pulls the first thing she touches. It doesn’t matter what it is, she’ll put Johnny in it. He’s sweat through the first two outfits she’s put him in today, his skin hot and feverish. She’s just about to put him in pajamas and tuck him in tight on the couch. She’ll need to find the Paw Patrol video he likes, too. She swears she just saw it.

Vanessa holds up the shirt she’s taken off the top of the pile and frowns. “Johnny, did Auntie Tracy buy you another outfit?”

Tracy comes stomping down the stairs, tumbling off the last step.

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Were your ears burning just now?”

Tracy touches one ear absently. “No, why?”

Vanessa holds up the shirt for Tracy to see. “Johnny’s shirt. When did you buy it?”

“I didn’t.” Tracy runs a gentle hand over Johnny’s head. “But what do you think, Johnny? A new shirt once you’re feeling better?”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Like he needs more. Wardrobe is bursting with them.”

Tracy ignores her, rubbing a thumb across Johnny’s forehead. Vanessa watches him lean into the touch. “Actually,” Tracy says, tipping her head to the side. “Looks a bit like Moses’ shirt, doesn’t it?”

Vanessa scoffs. “Why would Moses Dingle’s shirt be in my laundry?”

Tracy shrugs. “Who knows? I found one of Ross’s garage slips the other day, right in my purse.” She shrugs. “Not sure how I ended up with it, but these things happen.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “You probably just picked that up yourself and forgot about it.”

Tracy pushes at her shoulder. “I’m not that daft, V.” She pulls her jacket off the hook and slides into it. “I’m just saying, it happens. And you might want to give it back before Charity thinks you’ve taken it.”

Vanessa puts it down on the arm of the couch with a soft frown on her face and picks up another shirt, with Marshall splashed across the front. Moses Dingle’s shirt in her laundry pile.

It’s odd, that.

 

-

 

“Forget this, babe?” Charity whispers in her ear.

Vanessa ignores the shiver that runs down her spine and leans away from the hot air against her neck. “Charity.”

Charity sighs heavily and rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t be weird. I found your earring, that’s all.” She puts the small earring on the bar and steps away, eyeing Vanessa pointedly.

Vanessa closes the file she’s working on and scoops it up quickly. “I thought I’d lost it.” She pulls the back off and slips it into her ear.

“Well, you did.” Charity is back behind the bar now, pulling Vanessa a pint without asking her if she’s stopping for one. She puts it down in front of Vanessa, careful of the folder on the bartop. “And now you’ve got it.”

“Right,” Vanessa says quietly. She looks up with a frown. “But I wasn’t wearing earrings the last time we-”

Charity grins, lifting her eyebrows suggestively. “You weren’t wearing a lot the last time we-”

“ _Charity,_ ” Vanessa hisses. She looks around the pub, but there’s no one paying them any mind.

Two slim fingers walk across her folder and catch her attention. Charity is on the other end of them, still grinning as she leans closer. “You can wear even less the next time if you’d like.”

Vanessa feels her neck get hot, but she can’t look away from Charity’s face. Her eyes drift down to Charity’s mouth and linger there, watching the way Charity’s tongue darts out to wet her lips for just a moment. Charity reaches out, her thumb brushing over Vanessa’s earlobe, over the small jewel of the earring there, and she leans closer.

“Let me know,” she whispers.

Vanessa touches the earring, and her fingertips feel hot.

 

-

 

“Charity,” she breathes.

Charity ignores her, lips blazing hotly down Vanessa’s neck.

Vanessa shivers. They’re just inside the pub now, barely making it through the door into the living room. She feels the couch against her back, and she twists, pulling Charity with her. “Charity,” she says again, pushing at Charity’s shoulders. “Noah might be-”

“Joe’s,” Charity mumbles. She pushes at Vanessa’s coat. “And Moses is with Ross. Paddy’s taken Chas to… something.”

Vanessa lets Charity work her coat down off her arms. “Are you certain that-”

“Babe.” Charity lifts her head. “No one is home. Marlon’s covering the bar. Now if you’re quite finished…”

“Right, right.” Vanessa grins and rests her hands on Charity’s hips, pulling her closer. “I’m finished.”

“Not yet, you aren’t.” Charity grins wickedly and kisses her again, pushing her around the couch. Vanessa can feel it against her back, and her legs and Charity’s hands are insistent on her hips and her neck. When the backs of her knees hit the edge of the couch, she falls and brings Charity down with her, lost in a sea of pillows.

Charity laughs and grabs at them, tossing them behind her carelessly. Vanessa sinks further into the couch and yelps, pushing Charity off her.

“What? What is it, babe?”

Vanessa stands, rubbing at her side. “I sat on something.” Something sharp, too. There’s a stabbing pain in her thigh, and she knows she’ll bruise quickly. She takes her coat off properly, hanging it over the back of one of the chairs at the table.

Charity frowns and pulls at the remaining pillows. “Babe, there’s nothing-” She stops for a moment before she laughs and pulls something out of the couch cushions. She holds the heel up by the strap, letting it swing between them. “This it?”

Vanessa rubs at her thigh again, and Charity takes pity on her, dropping the heel to the floor. She puts on a pout, trapping Vanessa against the couch, and replacing Vanessa’s hands with her own.

“Let me do that, yeah?” she whispers.

Vanessa lets Charity edge her back again, swallowing hard at the look in Charity’s eyes. For a second, she forgets that she’s never worn these shoes at Charity’s; that it’s been ages since she tried them on; that she was sure she’d lost one half of the pair.

 

-

 

Charity picks up a small scrap of paper off the table, unfolding it curiously. “Where did you get this?” she asks.

Vanessa looks up but doesn’t stop stirring the sauce she’s making. “What’s that?”

“My grocery list.”

Vanessa snorts. “You write grocery lists?”

Charity sticks her tongue out, but her eyes are still on the list in her hand. She turns it over, frowning.

“You must have just forgotten it,” Vanessa says, shrugging it off. She lips the spoon she’s stirring with, sauce dripping off the end of it. “Try this. I think it needs… something.”

Charity drops the list, and it flutters to the table, forgotten. “You know what it needs, yeah? A bit of my touch.”

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Save your touch for me and try this before it goes cold.”

Charity’s hands slide around her waist, and her chin rests on Vanessa’s shoulder.

The spoon falls back into the pot, and Charity presses her against the counter.

 

-

 

She’s tidying up the kitchen when she finds a torn edge of a piece of paper, tucked under the stack of mail Leyla dropped and forgot to pick up. She nearly stacks it in with Leyla’s things, but she pauses when she sees the writing on the outside, the high rise and fall of each letter.

Charity wrote this. She knows it instantly.

But the paper is worn and gray, some of the letters smudged with rain and tears. She pulls back one fold and scans the line, her lungs tight as she reads the start.

_Dear baby, I wish I had been strong enough to stay._

Vanessa closes the letter quickly, holding it against her chest. This is a letter to Ryan, to the baby Charity was sure hadn’t survived. And now here it is out of place and out of the baby box she knows Charity kept for him.

It’s here, on _her_ table.

And it’s silly, really, because Charity wouldn’t carry that letter around. Vanessa knows she takes it out of the box every so often and unfolds it carefully and reads it over, fingers gingerly tracing the page. Charity would never leave it out for anyone to read. Which means that Charity must have put it down somewhere at the pub. She must have lost it...

“ _Charity,_ ” she breathes.

If Charity lost it and Vanessa found it, that means…

It means...

_Charity is her soulmate._

Vanessa sits down, her legs shaking. It makes sense, really. The thought settles warm in her belly. Charity. She smiles. All this time, everything has been leading up to...

_Charity._

She smiles.

Charity is her _soulmate_.

She loved Kirin, she did. But there was something about Charity, something after that first kiss that sparked and settled and left her feeling so off-balance. She’s different. _It’s_ different. It has been since the first night in the cellar and the first night in Charity’s room and every other first they’ve had together.

Everything starts to fall into place now. All the things she knows about Charity’s past and all the things she’s collected over the years. They begin to weave together like a picture she’d just seeing for the first time. The hidden flask. The wet phone numbers and cigarette butts. The ticket stubs. The pregnancy test.

All of it had been Charity’s.

She wants to say something. She wants to storm the pub and tell Charity everything, all of it. She wants to start living the rest of her life with the woman she wants to be living it with.

But she can’t say anything. Not now. Not when everything is so fragile, and Charity still jumps when a door closes too hard. So she slides the letter in the box, and she waits. Charity will ready someday, and Vanessa will show her everything 

Someday.

 

-

 

“Ness,” Charity mumbles sleepily, pressing closer.

Vanessa smooths a hand down Charity’s neck, fingers digging into a small knot she finds there. “Go back to sleep.”

Charity blinks up at her. “Why’re you up?”

Because she had a nightmare. A memory.

“Just not tired,” she fibs.

Charity seems to know. She stretches, waking up little more as she shimmies higher on her pillow. Her forehead presses into Vanessa’s arm, and she’s warm to the touch. Vanessa sinks into her, letting Charity slide an arm around her waist and dig her fingertips into her hipbone.

“You were knackered hours ago.”

But Vanessa had a nightmare, and she woke up drenched in sweat and swallowing back the scream in her throat.

Vanessa shrugs and lets Charity pull her closer until their heads are sharing the same pillow; until they’re sharing the same air. There’s a sleepy smile on Charity’s face, and she blinks slowly, eyes closed for more than a second before they open. Vanessa runs a finger down the center of Charity’s forehead, over the bridge of her nose.

“Nightmare,” she admits. “Couldn’t fall back asleep.”

“I can help with that.” Charity’s fingers dance over Vanessa’s skin, dipping under the fabric of her shirt.

Vanessa pushes at her hand, kissing the tip of Charity’s nose. “You’re far too tired to start anything.”

Charity smiles lazily. “Could try, though.” She shuffles closer, her nose at Vanessa’s neck. “What was your nightmare, then?”

_It was horrible,_  is what Vanessa wants to say. It was as horrible as the moment she lived in real time.

“My mum,” is what she tells Charity.

Her mum, a G&T in hand, and a sneer on her face. Her mum, ranting about Frank Clayton. Her mum, sitting Vanessa down, her drink spilling onto the carpet. Her mum, telling her that sometimes you find the things your soulmate loses, but they don’t always find yours in return. 

Her mum, telling her that soulmates don’t actually exist. _Again._

That just because she’s found Charity’s things doesn’t mean that Charity has found hers.

Her mum hissing that Charity isn’t - can’t be - her soulmate.

Charity sighs. “What was it this time?”

Vanessa smiles humorlessly. “The usual. Berating and all that nonsense.”

“If I ever meet her, I’ll-”

“You’ll what?”

Charity opens her eyes and meets Vanessa, staring steadily. “Well, I’ll think of something.”

Vanessa snorts softly and rests her forehead against Charity’s. “Sleep,” she whispers.

Charity is snoring again by the time Vanessa works a hand into her hair and rests it at the base of her neck.

Vanessa is awake for hours.

-

 

Charity kisses her good morning, and the nightmare fades in the brightness of Charity’s smile. 

It stays away for now.

 

-

 

Vanessa forgets about the box.

She packs her things, handing it off one-by-one to Charity and Noah. She tasks her dad with picking up all of Johnny’s things into bags. She makes Tracy sort through the pictures she wants to keep on the walls and the ones she doesn’t. She carries everything over in handfuls, dropping them in her new room, the one at the pub.

Where they’ll live, now.

Where they’ll live with Charity.

Where they’ll live with her soulmate.

But as she closes the door to Tug Ghyll for the last time as her home, she forgets about the box under the sink.

She takes Charity’s hand, and she leaves the box behind.

 

-

 

“Charity, have you seen my- Nevermind!” she calls down the stairs. She fishes her earring out of the small pile of jewelry Charity’s left on the dresser. Vanessa sighs, putting down her earring and sifting through it. She stretches out one of Charity’s necklaces, frowning when it gets tangled in another one.

“It’s a wonder she still has jewelry,” she mumbles to herself. She pushes her earring to one side and starts to lay them out one by one. She looks fleetingly at the small jewelry holder, wondering why she even kept it if Charity isn’t using it. It’s handful after handful of jewelry and Vanessa untangles each item carefully, pulling loose the tight knots.

She’s four necklaces in when she picks up a bracelet to move it out of the way. Her fingers catch on its clasp, and she looks down for just a moment.

Just a moment is all it takes for her to recognize the delicate platinum band.

This is her bracelet. But she didn’t take it in the move. She didn’t even take it when she moved to the village.

She’s sure she lost this bracelet years ago, just before her move to uni. The bracelet her dad gave her before he moved out. It had small aquamarine stones in the links. Her birthstone. She remembers how it was wrapped, a fancy bow and gold-colored paper. Packing for uni, she’d looked and looked and looked and had been devastated that she couldn’t find it.

She couldn’t find it because…

Because Charity had it.

The air leaves her lungs, and her legs buckle.

_Charity_ had it.

Charity…

“Charity is my…” Vanessa closes her mouth quickly, pressing her hand to her lips. She looks around the empty room, her heart pounding in her chest. She takes shaky steps backward until her legs hit the bed and she falls, nearly slipping off the duvet.

She’d dreamed about this. About sorting through Charity’s things and finding something of her own. Some mornings she woke up with a smile on her face and her hand in Charity’s hair, something warm and hopeful in her chest. She’d dreamed about showing Charity all of the things she’s kept, all of the scraps of papers and missing earrings, and having Charity hand her something in return. Something she’s been missing for ages. Something she thought she must have just misplaced.

Sometimes, she had nightmares about it. More than just her mum, drunk and carrying on. Charity with a stern face and someone else’s things in front of her. Charity and a note that isn’t in Vanessa’s handwriting. Charity and someone else, hands entwined as Charity tells her that she’s found her true soulmate; that Vanessa was just a stop gap until now.

“Babe!” Charity’s voice echoes down the hall and  “Shift it, yeah? Noah’s dying to get to school so he can see that girl he’s interested in.”

“Am not!” Noah yells.

Vanessa puts the bracelet back down where she found it, burying it under loose earrings without matches, and tries to dim the smile she knows she’s wearing. 

_Charity is her soulmate._

 

-

 

“Babe,” Charity calls. “Trace brought one more box round.”

Vanessa pauses at the top of the stairs, pulling her hair up into a ponytail. She’s already late for work, but what’s a little later than she already is?

“It’s got hearts on it!” Charity laughs loudly.

Vanessa stomps down the stairs quicker, her heart beating loudly in her ears. Her box. The one she’s kept all of her soulmate’s lost things in. The one she’s kept all of Charity’s things in. Her hand slips on the doorknob as she tries to open it and she curses.

“Hope you don’t mind, babe.” Charity’s voice drifts through the door. “But I can’t _not_ open this-”

Vanessa gets the door open just as Charity pries the top off.

“Charity, don’t-”

Charity stares down into the box, the lid nearly slipping out of her fingers.

“Open it,” Vanessa finishes.

Charity reaches into it, lifting a slip of paper and holding it in her hands. “I lost this recipe ages ago.”

“You don’t cook anyway,” Vanessa jokes. It falls flat, though, and she winces.

Charity puts the paper down and reaches into the box again. “This is the picture Moses drew. I put it on the refrigerator, and I took it off just to… But then I lost it.”

Vanessa takes the picture out of Charity’s hand and puts it down carefully. “Charity.”

Charity sorts through it all - the tickets and the handmade drawings and the old lipstick tubes. Her hands brush over the letter she wrote to Ryan and Vanessa’s heart beats too hard in her chest, the air leaving her lungs. Charity doesn’t open it though, sorting quicker now as she spots something at the bottom of the box.

“Charity.”

“Where did you get this?” Charity shoves the picture of the baby, bright eyes and blonde hair, into Vanessa’s face. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it,” Vanessa whispers. The one piece she could never place. “Before I came to the village.”

Charity’s head snaps up. “All this time, you’ve-”

“No,” Vanessa says quickly. “No, I didn’t know until I-” She stops. Her eyes cut to the letter but she can’t, she can’t, bring it up now. “I didn’t know until I was already living in the village. Swear it.”

Charity trails a finger across the picture, over the baby’s face. “It’s Noah.”

_Noah,_ Vanessa thinks. Of course, it is. She wonders why she didn’t see it before. The blonde hair, the blue eyes. _Maybe its the snarl_ , she thinks. He looks so happy in the picture.

“I lost it,” Charity continues. She laughs humorlessly. “Of course I did. You have it.”

The way she says _you_ hits Vanessa low in the stomach.

“When I gave him to Zoe- when I gave him up, this was all I had left. And then I lost this, too…” Charity looks up at her, eyes wet in the corners. “You had it.”

“I kept it,” Vanessa tries to explain. “I wanted to give it-”

“So why didn’t you?” Charity asks, her voice rising.

“I didn’t know how,” Vanessa admits. She wrings her hands together, her fingers itching to reach out and touch Charity. “Charity, I wanted to give them back.”

“These…” Charity swallows hard. “These are my things. Why…” Charity blinks slowly. “How-how long have you known?” she asks again.

Vanessa flinches. “Not long. A few months,” she promises. She can’t lie now, not about this.

Charity goes stiff under her touch. “A few months?”

“I found a letter,” Vanessa rushes on, digging into the box to find it. She holds it up. “And I knew straight away it was you, but I-”

“You what?” Charity asks, her voice a hard rasp. “You couldn’t tell me?”

“I thought it was best if I waited,” Vanessa admits.

“Oh, right.” Charity throws her arms up in the air. “Best for who, then?”

“You.” The words falter even as she speaks them.

Charity’s eyes harden. “Wouldn’t that be for me to decide, babe?”

“Of course. It’s just that I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what? Think? No, you didn’t.” Charity drops the lid of the box onto the table and sticks her hand back inside of it, pulling out more slips of paper, train tickets. They rain down over the table and onto the floor.

Vanessa scrambles for something to say, a knot growing in her chest. “ _A soulmate finds what has been lost for true love comes at no true cost,_ ” she finally recites.

Charity’s looks up, and her eyes widen. “You know that?”

Vanessa frowns, hope sinking. “Don’t you?”

“Course I do, babe. But I always thought it was a nursery rhyme. After…” Charity folds her arms over her chest, eyes flat now. “Well, after everything that happened to me, I figured there was no such thing as a soulmate.”

“I never stopped believing,” Vanessa breathes. She takes a step towards Charity, her palms sliding over Charity’s arms. “I’ve kept everything. I mean, nearly everything.” There’s a weight lifting off her chest as she pulls Charity closer. “I didn’t know it was _you_ at first, but I knew it was someone and I knew they’d want it back, yeah?”

“I need…” Charity takes a step back, breathing deeply. She folds her arms over her chest, and Vanessa feels a weight sinking in her stomach. “I need to go, babe. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Charity.” Vanessa takes a step forward.

Charity takes a step back. “I need to go, Vanessa. We’ll… I need to go.”

She turns sharply, bumping her hit against the bed, and then she’s pulling open the bedroom door. Vanessa can hear her socked feet, her steps light and nearly soundless, and then the stairs are creaking. She barely hears the door to the pub open and close, but she feels it in her chest. Charity’s shadow flickers on the street below, and Vanessa presses herself to the window, watching Charity disappear around a corner.

Vanessa sits down, the bed groaning heavily underneath her. She looks at the picture Charity left behind, the small baby - _Noah_ \- smiling happily back at her. 

She waits.

 

-

 

Charity comes back in the middle of tea, slipping into the room with her head down and her hair in her face. Noah looks at her for a moment before he goes back to his stew, shoving down mouthful after mouthful. Johnny brightens, calling her name and stretching out his hands. He hands grabby motions, a pout slowly forming when Charity doesn’t come over and scoop him up like she usually does. Moses smiles and steals Johnny’s sippy cup, taking a drink from it.

Vanessa doesn’t notice, eyes locked on Charity as she moves slowly around the room.

“Charity,” she says, the name sticking in her throat.

Charity stays quiet, dropping her coat over the back of the couch and pushing her hair back behind her ears.

“There’s stew,” Vanessa finishes softly. She busies herself, ladling some into a bowl and holding it out for Charity to take.

Their fingers don’t brush, Charity’s hand nowhere close to Vanessa’s. Before this, they would. Charity would curl her fingers over Vanessa’s and pull her closer and whisper something in Vanessa’s ear. Vanessa would blush and turn away from the boys and Noah would groan about them being gross again.

But now Charity stands too far away, and she looks past Vanessa over her shoulder.

“Charity, can we-”

“Later,” Charity says hoarsely. Her knuckles are white where she grips her bowl.

Vanessa nods, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. But she goes back to her food, and she eats it without tasting it. She lets Noah get out of washing dishes. She shuttles the boys upstairs and skips the bath just for today, tucking them in and reading as short of a story as they’ll allow. She waves goodnight to Noah and doesn’t remind him not to stay up until dawn battling orcs, or whatever he’s doing.

It’s not until she’s at the bottom of the stairs that the panic replaces the numb feeling in her chest. She pauses with her hand on the doorknob and takes a deep and sharp breath.

Charity is on the couch, picking at the cushion. Vanessa comes slowly, choosing a seat at the table and turning it to face the couch. She wants to say a hundred things, but she knows Charity. So she waits. She waits, and she tries not to let her fears consume her.

_Charity didn’t actually find the bracelet, but she took from someone who did. Charity doesn’t want to see her ever again. Charity is breaking up with her. Charity will never trust her again. Charity is taking back the ring, and they’re not getting married anymore._

“It was the nicest thing I had ever seen,” Charity finally says after a few minutes.

“What was?”

“That bracelet.” Charity looks up for a fleeting moment. “I found it one morning under my pillow, and it was so sparkly, and I couldn’t throw it away.”

Vanessa runs her thumb over the diamond on her ring. “Did you keep anything else?”

“I didn’t collect things, if that’s what you’re asking,” Charity says sharply. “I wasn’t building a bloody memorial.”

_Like you,_  she doesn’t say.

Vanessa feels her face flush. “I couldn’t help it. It felt like I needed to give it back to whoever - to you.”

Charity shrugs a shoulder, turning a pen over in her fingers. “You said you knew months ago.”

“I found your letter to Ryan and everything else just sort of made sense after that,” Vanessa admits. She doesn’t know what else to say. She knows she shouldn’t have kept it from Charity. She knows Charity is strong; that she would have been strong enough to handle it.

“But you didn’t tell me.”

Because, Vanessa thinks. “Because I wasn’t sure,” she says out loud. “I wasn’t sure I was yours.”

“Because I’ve been with so many people,” Charity assumes. “Is that it?”

Vanessa shakes her head sharply. “Because it would have killed me if I wasn’t.”

Charity looks at her properly now, eyes narrowed. “You what?”

Vanessa moves closer, sliding off the kitchen chair and onto the coffee table. Her knees nearly press against Charity’s, but she’s careful to keep the distance between them. She’ll wait until Charity reaches for her. “I love you, Charity Dingle.”

Charity sags back against the cushions, pulling a pillow into her lap. “I know.”

“And if weren’t my soulmate-”

“Some people don’t believe in soulmates,” Charity says sharply.

Vanessa thinks of her mum. “They’re wrong.” She straightens up. “They want to believe in them, but something is in the way.” She thinks of her mum cursing her dad’s name. “They’ve lost their soulmate, or they’ve found out their soulmate is someone else’s. And if I wasn’t yours, I’d…” She doesn’t finish that thought.

Charity sighs softly. “So, when then? Who did you think was my soulmate?”

“Cain, maybe?” Vanessa’s fear of that truth twists in her stomach. “You keep - kept going back to him and I-”

“The first time I found a pair of socks with white lace around the ankle, I knew. As if Cain would wear something like that.” Charity laughs humorlessly. “I’ve known it since we were kids. But I could pretend, couldn’t I?” She looks away again. “Felt good, to have someone who wanted me.”

“I was going to tell you.” Vanessa leans in a bit closer. “I swear it.”

“When, though? After 20 years of marriage?”

Vanessa hiccups. “You think we’ll be married for 20 years?” She shakes her head quickly, ignoring the bloom of hope that runs through her. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how to explain it all.”

“Hi, Charity,” Charity says flatly. “I’ve kept all your train stubs and grocery lists for the last 30 years. Would like them back.”

“I’d like to think I’d be a bit more romantic,” Vanessa mumbles.

Charity drops the pillow she’s holding to one side and moves closer to Vanessa. Her hands hang down in front of her, nearly touching the tops of Vanessa’s knees. “I found a yellow raincoat,” she says. “A few years ago, I opened my wardrobe and there it was. Horrific to look at, really. Nearly blinded me, didn’t it? And then you came into the pub with Rhona, and you were blathering on about losing one and how you just put it down for a moment. How someone must have walked away with it while you were working or at the cafe, but…”

“But you had it,” Vanessa breathes out. “The one in the wardrobe…”

“I know I told you- you must’ve left it here by accident,” Charity interrupts. “But I’d had before we got together. Long before you started leaving things here.”

“You knew.”

“Known for years, I think,” Charity admits. “I didn’t know how to tell you, either.”

Vanessa shrinks back. “Because you didn’t want it to be me.”

Charity presses forward. “Because I didn’t know it _could_ be you.” She grabs for Vanessa’s hands, holding them tightly in her own. “Babe, come on. Me and you? It wouldn’t have worked then.”

“It works now,” Vanessa says firmly.

Charity smiles a little, one corner of her mouth lifting slightly. “Course it does.” She rubs a thumb over the back of Vanessa’s hand. “We fit, babe.” She lifts Vanessa’s hand and presses it to her mouth. “I was mad before. At myself,” she adds quickly. “For not telling you sooner and not keeping your things. You held onto years of my things, and I didn’t keep anything of yours.”

“Charity, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Charity argues. “Babe, if you’d thrown out that picture, or-or that letter, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Vanessa moves closer still, a leg sliding between Charity’s. “I’d never.”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Charity laughs and Vanessa feels it in her chest. “Can barely get you to toss out a magazine, can I? I swear you keep every scrap of paper the boys bring home.”

“Noah is a good student,” Vanessa defends. “When he wants to be. And who knows? Maybe Moses and Johnny’ll be artists when they grow up.”

“We can only hope they won’t,” Charity mutters. “Our Johnny, maybe. But Moses has his eye on you, yeah? Caught him trying to rescue a worm the other day.” She sits up, gripping Vanessa’s hands tighter. “Point is, babe. I’ve known you’ve been mine. But I was too scared that I wasn’t yours, so I shoved it down. And I tried to find other people who wouldn’t care if they weren’t my soulmate. Jai had Holly and Declan had Katie. And it was okay, to try and be with someone who didn’t need me to their soulmate.”

“So we both hid the truth,” Vanessa says. Her eyes start to blur at the edge as tears form.

Charity tips her head. “Would you have believed me?”

Vanessa snorts. “Not likely.”

“Babe, I’m your soulmate,” Charity whispers. 

“And I’m yours.”

Charity pulls her closer, her nose brushing Vanessa’s. “So, we’re not so lost anymore, yeah?” 

Vanessa kisses her slowly, resting her forehead against Charity’s. “Reckon we’ve found each other now.”


End file.
